


Twice The Fool

by CantSpeakFae



Series: The Scars Souvenir [16]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Episode Revist + Revision, F/M, Slightly AU from here, Written from Xander's P.O.V
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-25 07:08:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18256280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CantSpeakFae/pseuds/CantSpeakFae
Summary: He just wants a do-over. He wants to say NO to her. Let her be the one who desperately pours her heart out only to have that heart stomped all over.





	1. Chapter 1

“So. What do you think?”   
  
Buffy leans forward, tilting her head and staring contemplatively at the lock that’s dangling from his hand. It gleams in the moonlight and he thinks… well, he thinks that he made a good choice, but a girl’s perspective never hurts, right?   
  
“It’s nice.” Buffy decides, leaning back again. And Xander steps closer, still eyeing the gift speculatively.   
  
“But do you think Cordelia will like it?”   
  
“I dooooon’t know,” Buffy said, sucking air through her teeth and then pressing her lips together to try and hide a smile as she reaches out and gently holds the heart locket in her own hand, getting a closer look, and then looking up at him with the sly smile she’d been trying to hide. “Does she know what one of these is?”   
  
Xander yanks it back out of her hand and carefully tucks it into the pocket of his jacket, keeping his hands there too. It’s cold out, tonight. As cold as it really gets in Sunnydale. And he chuckles, even as his heart does a flip in his chest. He’s… nervous about giving this to Cordy and the teasing isn’t doing much to boost his confidence.  
  
“Okay, big yuks. When are you guys gonna stop making fun of me for dating Cordelia?”  
  
“I'm sorry. But never.” Buffy says. Xander nods and smiles… but he looks down and scuffs the toe of his shoe against the ground and Buffy tries again, her tone oddly gentle. “I just think you could find somebody more… better.”   
  
And he has to remind himself that they don’t know the Cordelia that he does. That, honestly, he doesn’t even really know this new Cordelia... yet. But that he wants to know her. Wants to know everything about her. The kind, occasionally insightful Cordelia that longs for something besides her fake friends and relying on Daddy’s money. He just wishes that Buffy and Willow could see it too… or, at least, that they’d try. But getting through to Willow is impossible and as Willow goes, so does Buffy’s nation. They have a friendship that he doesn’t get to be part of. A girl thing, that he is on the outside of. For the most part, he doesn’t mind. But days like today…  
  
“Uh, parallel universe, maybe.” He says, in argument with the idea of him doing better and he looks up. “Besides, Cordy and I are really getting along. We're not fighting as much, and yesterday we just sat together, not even speakin'. You know, just, uh, enjoying comfortable silence.”   
  
He suddenly feels self-conscious about that. It had been a really nice moment and he hadn’t been planning on sharing it with anyone. It just slipped out, so he tries to brush it off like it was nothing. Grinning, laughing, and then sighing.   
  
“Man, that was dull.”   
  
Buffy smiles too. “I’m glad you guys are getting along. Almost really. And don’t stress over the gift.”   
  
He wishes he could be breezy about it. He really does.   
  
“Well, this is new territory for me.” He tells her. And, he’s not kidding. He’s never had a… valentine, before. But that thought makes him both giddy and sad, so he goes for funny. “I mean, my valentines are usually met with heartfelt restraining orders.”   
  
“She'll love it,” Buffy promised. Once more, with feeling that time.   
  
“I wish dating was like Slaying,” Xander said, stepping out the way. Automatically, like his body is sensing something before his mind can catch up with it. “You know. Simple, direct, stake to the heart, no muss, no fuss.”   
  
He turns around to face her again just as a vampire rises from the fresh grave they’d been staking out all night. He jerks back away from the snarling face, reacting on instinct, but tripping over himself and falling backwards onto the ground. He doesn’t have time to regain his sense of direction and can’t even react to the vampire reaching down to grab him before Buffy is up and off the grave, grabbing the dead guy from behind and throwing him high and away. He hits the ground, hard, reverse somersaulting back to his feet and he lunges back at Buffy, but she’s faster. She leaps at him, meeting him halfway, and double kicks him in the chest, landing upright while he staggers back into the corner column of a small mausoleum.   
  
Buffy comes at him, again, but he blocks her first two punches, ducks the third… and Xander just watches. There’s nothing he can do to help, really, Buffy is in her element and way outta his league of fighting… and it’s so fascinating to watch and he stares like he has any chance of all of absorbing her technique and ever knowing how to apply it himself. Sometimes he gets tangible memories of the soldier, but never when he doesn’t have anything that could pass for a weapon on his hand. This is as close as he gets to fighting lessons. Real ones, not implanted ones.  
  
Buffy reaches into her jacket and pulls out a stake, lunging when the vampire stands back up again and tries to make a grab for her and deftly plunging it into his chest. He’s ash before he can even register what happened. Buffy pulls her stake back out before it can turn to ash, too, and then dusts herself off with a sense of satisfaction.   
  
She moves back over to him and pulls him up to his feet.   
  
“Sorry to say, Xan.” She tells him, with a smile. “Slaying is a tad more perilous than dating.”   
  
They start out of the cemetery, together, and Xander bumps his shoulder against hers.   
  
“Well, you're obviously not dating Cordelia.”  
  


* * *

  
Valentines Day.  
  
Xander hasn’t been this nervous in a while but he tries to walk with the confidence of someone who’s made good decisions… and he has, he’s sure. Spent money on a gift, even bought some new, Cordelia-would-approve clothes on Buffy’s suggestion. Now… all he has to do is find his girl and hope that he’s done enough to make himself worthy of what he’s sure is going to be a good night.   
  
He looks around and spots her, sitting alone at a table. His heart pounds in his chest and he swallows hard as he walks over to her. She notices him approaching and stands to, moving closer and meeting him halfway. He ducks his head and grins. She looks… great. As always.   
  
“Hey.”   
  
She looks him up and down and he can see the surprise in her eyes at his new outfit and he straightens up, a little, suddenly feeling a whole lot better about it. It’d been… hard to justify spending the money on it, but hey. He deserved nice clothes sometimes, right? Especially if it made Cordelia look at him like that.   
  
“Your clothes... You look so good.” She says, finally, but she doesn’t sound… happy about it.   
  
Xander looks down at himself, too, wondering if maybe he mismatched something. “Oh. I let Buffy dress me.” That earns him a confused look from Cordy, so he clarifies. “Well, not physically.”   
  
And that’s the wrong thing to say, too, apparently because she starts to get visibly upset.   
  
“Perfect. You had to make this harder, didn’t you?”   
  
Oh. Oh, no. Okay, he’s clearly done something wrong. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked Buffy what was good to wear - should have let Cordy take him shopping? But he wanted to surprise her… and he did, just not as well as he thought? “Okay, clearly the fact that I please you visually has got us off on the wrong foot here.”  
  
“Xander…” She starts to say, but he holds his hands up. If he doesn’t get this out now, he’s gonna lose all his nerve to say it at all.  
  
“Let me finish. I've been thinking a lot about us lately... the why and the wherefore. You know, once, twice, a kissy here, a kissy there. And you can chalk it all up to hormones.”   
  
Cordelia looks puzzled. This isn’t going well. He considers waving the white flag, but he coughs and presses on.   
  
“A-and maybe that's all we have here. Tawdry teen lust. But maybe not. Maybe something in you sees something special inside me?”   
  
Cordelia looks down and then back up. She doesn’t scoff or get disgusted, though, so he takes that as a win. His heart does a little flutter in his chest. Okay. Okay! She does like him? A little, at least? That’s good. That’s great!   
  
“And vice versa!” He continues, talking a little faster. This is going better than he expected and now he can’t wait to give her the necklace, now. “I mean, I think I do. See something. So…”  
  
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the jewelry box, handing it over to her with an awkward little nod of his head. She takes it and looks up at him with an emotion he can’t quite identify in her eyes.   
  
“Xander…”   
  
She opens the box and looks down at the necklace, nestled inside. And the look on her face, now, makes all the scrounging and scrambling for cash worth it. She picks it up and holds it by its delicate, silver chain. Her eyes focusing on the pendant, and her expression softening.   
  
This is good!   
  
Xander can’t believe how… good it feels to give her something and just see that she likes it. Cordelia Chase, of all people. But he did and he does and he wants to keep seeing her happy like that.   
  
“It’s beautiful.” She says, exhaling and looking at him again. “I wanna break up.”   
  
Xander blinks. Rapidly. His elation pops like a balloon and sags lifelessly to the ground. If this is her idea of a joke, it’s not a very funny one.  
  
“Okay.” He says, going for funny himself. She has to be kidding. Playing the mean girl bit because that’s how it always is between them, not because she means it or… “Not quite the reaction I was looking for.”   
  
Cordelia started shaking her head and any residual hope that she was just pulling a really awful joke starts to die. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just… who are we kidding?”   
  
Not the reaction he’d been hoping for. Not at all. And even if he’d been half-expecting it before he’d seen her, the way she’d been looking at him, and then looking at the necklace and… what did he do wrong? He tried. He really tried. He got these stupid new clothes and the stupid necklace and he…   
  
“Even if parts of us do see specialness, we don’t fit.”   
  
Xander looks up at that. This is what it always comes back to, isn’t? He’s not good enough. He’s never good enough. Cordelia is outta his league and he’s just an idiot trying too hard.   
  
“Yeah! Okay!” He says. He means to be chipper, to bow out fast and run like hell to lick his wounds in private, but he makes the mistake of looking her in the eyes and the upset crashes over him in waves. His throat feels tight and his eyes sting. “Do you know what’s a good day to break up with somebody? Any day _besides_ Valentine’s Day! I mean, what, were you running low on dramatic irony?”   
  
Cordelia at least has the grace to look sad. “I know. I didn’t mean to do it this way. I-”  
  
“Well, you did.” Xander interrupted.   
  
Cordelia looks at him, apologetically… with that familiar pity in her eyes and he stares back until he can’t stand it and then turns on his heel and hurries out of the Bronze, breathing hard like he’d just finished a marathon, thinking about every word. Why had he said all that stuff? He’d just embarrassed himself. Thinking that she saw something special in him?   
  
Yeah. Right.  
  


* * *

 

It started because Xander was having a day.   
  
Not a good day. He stayed up late with knots of upset in his stomach and then slept through his alarm until Tony, who got tired of hearing it go off with every time he snoozed it without so much as opening his eyes, came bursting into his bedroom and yanked him out of bed, throwing him onto the ground and giving him a good kick.   
  
Running late for school meant skipping breakfast and he tossed his lunch money at his mother when she cornered him in the hall, mumbling some nonsense about needing extra cash because he didn’t have time to try and discern if he’d be helping or hurting more if he didn’t give her something. And then, by the time he got there, it quickly became apparent that Cordelia had told _everyone_ that she dumped him.   
  
He’d come moping around the corner when the comments started. Someone had passed him in the hall and patted him on the shoulder, startling him.   
  
“Dude,” He said, with a malicious grin. “Way to get dumped!”   
  
He kept on walking and, after a second, Xander did too. He looked up, hoping for a friendly or at least familiar face to distract him… and he finds one in Buffy. His heart lifts. Thank GOD.   
  
“Ooh, Buffy, my bud!” He reaches out, taking her by the hand, and stopping her. “You will not believe…”   
  
But then she looks at him, her eyes distant and her expression carefully composed… and he knows even before she says it.   
  
“Can’t talk right now. Angel.”   
  
Xander lets go of her, swallowing the word vomit about Cordelia that had been bubbling up inside of him and pushing it aside. “Do you need help?”   
  
“It's alright.” She says, brushing him off.   
  
She quickly resumes her rapid trek to the library, probably to talk to Giles, and Xander watches her go with a sigh before continuing down the hall. A group of girls passes around him, staring and giggling, and he can feel his face turning red. He knows what they’re talking about, what they’re saying, and it makes him feel both hot and cold inside. He tries to breeze past them, but Harmony says his name and he looks up, automatically. Their gazes meet and a sneering smile curls her mouth.   
  
“Gee, Xander, maybe you should learn a second language to that even more girls can reject you!”   
  
She and the other girls laugh in his face. He swallows back the vitriol that rises up in the back of his throat, the crushing comment that he wants to lob back at her, and keeps moping along. He has every intention of playing ill and hiding out in the nurse’s office… but then it happens.   
  
He wasn't planning this. No details, no thoughts of the consequences. He sees Amy heading up the stairs in front of him and then the idea just… happens. He rushes over to her, takes her by the arm, and pulls her aside.   
  
“What are you doing?” She asks, startled.   
  
Xander ignores that.   
  
“Amy. Good to see you.” He says, taking a quick look around. No one’s looking at them, good. “You’re a witch.”   
  
Amy glances around, too. “No, I'm not. That, that was my mom, remember?”   
  
She smiles a fake, too-innocent smile and Xander rolls his eyes.   
  
“Yeah, I'm thinking it runs in the family. I saw you working that mojo on Ms. Beakman.” He gestures behind himself. “Maybe I should go tell somebody about…”   
  
“That’s not even…!” She says, glaring at him. “That is so mean!   
  
Xander glares right back. “Blackmail is such an ugly word.”  
  
“I didn't say blackmail.”  
  
Xander grins, then. “Yeah, but I'm about to blackmail you, so I thought I'd bring it up.”  
  
Amy folds her arms, looking at him skeptically. “What do you want?”  
  
Xander laughs. It’s not a happy noise.   
  
“What do I want? I want some respect around here. I want, for ONCE, to come out ahead. I want the Hellmouth to be working for me. You and me, Amy…”   
  
He looks back at Harmony and sees Cordelia sitting with her, now. Already accepted back into the fold, her crown eagerly handed back over and as untarnished as ever. He’s nothing but the unsightly blemish on her otherwise spotless record of popularity.   
  
“... we’re gonna cast a spell.”  
  
Amy looks past him at Cordelia as well, then turns her eyes up at him, wary.  
  


* * *

  
“A love spell?” Amy asks, staring at Xander like he’s gone completely crazy.   
  
Maybe he has. Maybe Cordelia has made him crazed, but he’s too far gone to think much about the oogy implications of what he’s asking for. He doesn’t want to _enslave_  her or anything. He just…  
  
“Yeah. You know, just the basic can't eat, can't sleep, can't breathe anything but little old moi.”  
  
“Well, that kind of thing is the hardest! I mean, to make someone love you for all eternity?”   
  
Okay, now, see, that’s not what he wants. He waves his hand and shakes his head.  
  
“Whoa! Whoa, back up. Who said anything about eternity? A man can only talk self-tanning lotion for so long before his head explodes.”  
  
Amy blinks at him, confused.   
  
“Well, then I don't get it. If you don't wanna be with her forever, then what's the point?”  
  
Of course, she doesn’t get it. Big shock, no one gets the why. He sighs, impatiently.  
  
“The point is I want her to want me. Desperately. So I can break up with HER and subject her to the same hell she's been puttin' ME through.”   
  
He doesn't want to keep her on a chain. He doesn’t want forever. He just wants a do-over. He wants to say NO to her. Let her be the one who desperately pours her heart out only to have that heart stomped all over.  
  
Amy turns and steps away, wringing her hands. “Oh, I don't know, Xander. Intent has to be pure with love spells.”  
  
“Right. I intend revenge. Pure as the driven snow. Now, are you gonna play, or do we need to have another chat about invisible homework?”   
  
His threat seems to be enough. She considers and then relents.  
  
“I'll need something of hers.” She says, stepping closer. “A personal object.”  
  
“Alright.” He says, with a smile. As it so happens, he knows exactly what of hers he can get his hands on.  
  


* * *

  
He’s hanging by the lockers when she finally comes around. He’s waiting for her, and she must know that, because she spots him, pivots around, then hurries the other way. That’s some serious deja-vu, but he’s not in the mood for a trip down memory lane. He walks faster, passes her, then spins around to stop her in her tracks.   
  
“Oh, come on.” He says, testily. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not gonna make a big scene. I just want the necklace back.”  
  
Cordelia looks at him with disbelief. “What? I thought it was a gift!”  
  
“No. Last night it was a gift. Today it's scrap metal. Figure I can melt it down and sell it for fillings or something.” He lies, his eyes narrowed and his tone icy. Even just standing near her makes him mad, now. How can she look at him like that, like he’s the bad guy when she dumped him? Told him he wasn’t good enough and went on her merry little way?  
  
“You're pathetic!” She sneers at him.  
  
“Come on, I'm not gonna add to the Cordelia Chase castoff collection.”  
  
Cordelia glares at him. “It's in my locker.”  
  
Xander glances in the direction of her locker. Oh, goody. That’s right there, isn’t?   
  
“I can wait.”  
  
She gives him another look, then goes over to her locker. Xander steps to the side of the hall and leans against the lockers, there, watching to see if anyone’s coming around. He’s not sure why he feels the need to give her privacy, but he stands out of the way, anyway until he hears the locker close.   
  
Cordelia steps over to him and hands him the necklace, shoving it at him.  
  
“Here. It's a good thing we broke up. Now I don't have to pretend I like it.”  
  
That stings. If she had any idea what it took to be able to afford this stupid necklace… but Xander just gives her a look and storms off. He’s that much closer to getting all the revenge his bitter little heart could desire. No time to wallow in the details.  
  


* * *

  
Xander is… less sure about the plan, later that night. Even if eight hours of sour looks, pointed comments, and no support from his two bestest pals in the world had him festering and seething over the unfairness of it all, he’s still not sure he wants to have to strip down and get the body paint out when Amy tells him he has to. It’s only the memory of Cordelia telling him she hated the necklace that gets him to shrug outta his shirt and sit down, but he’s still half-convinced that Amy is just messin’ with him to get back at him for blackmailing her when he sits down and she hands him a candle.   
  
Speaking of the witch, Amy is at a lab table where she's waving the locket over her witch's brew, which is boiling in a beaker over a Bunsen burner. Science and magic collide, who says they can’t have it all.  
  
“Diana... goddess of love and the hunt... I pray to thee. Let my cries bind the heart of Xander's beloved.” Amy prays or maybe invokes. He’s not sure what the right word for it is. And she lowers the necklace into the brew which sparks. “May she neither rest nor sleep until she submits to his will only.”  
  
The flame of the burner suddenly sparks upward and grows as the power of the spell emanates from the beaker and swirls above it and between her hands.  
  
“Diana, bring about this love and bless it!”  
  
The swirls of energy begin to return to the beaker and disappear. It’s fascinating to watch. And a little terrifying. He...suddenly thinks that maybe he’s making a bad decision, but it’s too late to turn back now. Amy turns to him.  
  
“Blow out the candle, now!”   
  
And he does.  
  


* * *

  
Amy was sure it worked. After all the fire and sparking and darkness, it seemed like it had. And Xander walked into school the next day with an undeserved sense of confidence, swaggering through the lounge and brightening when he sees Cordelia and her “friends” sitting at a table. Alright, let the show begin.   
  
He strolls over to them and rests one hand on the table and leans over it next to Cordelia, looking around at all the girls and giving them a smile. Cordelia looks up at him, her eyes narrowed.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Morning, ladies.” He says, still sure of himself, and then he looks to Cordelia. “Some kind of weather we’ve been having, huh?”   
  
He’s not sure what love spells are supposed to look like. She doesn’t look dazed or like she wants to throw herself at him, but maybe it’s subtle.  
  
“What do you want? You can't be sniffing around for more jewelry to melt, because all you ever gave me was that Smallmart-looking thing.” Cordelia snapped, looking down at her notebook.  
  
Xander chuckles and leans into Cordelia. “Is this love? ‘Cause maybe on you it doesn’t look that different.”   
  
He’s completely surprised when Cordelia suddenly pushes him back.  
  
“What are you doing? Are you going, like, stalker-boy on me now?” She demands.   
  
It didn’t work.   
  
That becomes painfully obvious to him, all at once. The spell didn’t… work. And he’s embarrassed, but he’s also strangely relieved, a little. Confused, too, so he steps back.  
  
“Sorry. My mistake.”   
  
“Yeah, I should say so.”  
  
He walks turns and walks away. He’s really gonna have to talk to Amy - if the spell didn’t work, that’s all on her and now he’s REALLY betting that all that stuff last night was just to embarrass him. Witches!   
  


* * *

  
With no other options, Xander walks into the library and up to the table where Buffy is sitting, probably still reeling from her Angel experience that she never did get around to telling him about. Which is just as well, because he never got to tell her about Cordelia, either. He holds up his hands.  
  
“I have a plan: we use me as bait."  
  
“You mean make Angel come after you?”  
  
“No, I mean chop me into little pieces and stick me on hooks for fish to nibble at 'cause it would be more fun than MY life.”   
  
Buffy shoots him a sympathetic smile. “Yeah,” she said, rising up to her feet. “I heard about you and Cordy. That’s her loss.”   
  
Xander scoffs at that. “Yeah. Not really the popular theory.”  
  
Buffy looks up at him, then. “You know what I'd like? Why don't you and I do something together tonight? Just the two of us.”   
  
Xander blinks and double-takes at her. The huh and the who with the what doing hUH now?   
  
“Really?”   
  
“Yeah. We can comfort each other.”   
  
For some reason, the idea of crying into ice cream with Buffy isn’t totally appealing. He’s more of the wallow by himself kinda guy, with country music playing over the sound of his parents screaming at each other, but he doesn’t wanna hurt her feelings, especially since she’s still reeling from the Angel experience. So, he tries to play it off like a joke - make it seem like he’s doing better than he is and then he can push her to invite Willow over instead, maybe.   
  
“Well, would lap dancing enter into that scenario at all? 'Cause I find that very comforting.” He says, with a grin, waiting for the chorus of “ _eww_ ” and “ _Xander, is that all you think about?”_  
  
But Buffy only stands up straighter, looks into his eyes, and takes a step closer to him with a smile.   
  
“Play your cards right…”   
  
WAIT, WHAT? Xander reaches out, holding up a hand, stopping her from moving any closer. What the what is happening right now?   
  
“Okay, uh… you do know that I’m Xander, right?”   
  
Buffy nods and looks down, shy now. “I don't know, I just... heard that you and Cordy broke up, and I guess I was just surprised how glad I was.”   
  
Well, he wasn’t shocked. Neither she nor Willow had been big fans of him getting his smoochies from Cordy, but… Buffy’s playing with his shirt, now. Tugging on the fabric and then leaning into him and Xander is confused but not HATING it. What is going on?   
  
“It's funny how you can see someone every day but not really see them. You know?” Buffy asked.  
  
And now he’s even more confused. But he smiles and chuckles nervously. “Yeah, it’s funny. And it’s just gettin’ funnier.”   
  
Buffy puts her finger to his lips to quiet him and slowly leans toward him for a kiss and Xander freezes. Buffy’s trying to kiss him, why is Buffy trying to kiss him, and why isn’t he moving back away? Does he want to kiss her? Kinda! He’d wanted to kiss her for so long, and he’d worked hard to get over her, especially after that dance at the Bronze, but here she is, all soft and warm, and here he is with an aching heart and wounded self-esteem and she wants him so he’ll -   
  
Amy walks into the library and calls out. “Xander, can I talk to you for a minute?”   
  
Buffy pulls back slightly. Xander looks at Amy, back at Buffy, then at Amy again and coughs, slightly. This might be important. It might be about the spell.   
  
“Yeah, okay.” He says, stepping away reluctantly.  
  


* * *

  
Xander follows Amy out into the hall, silently agreeing that any talk about the spell should be kept away from Buff. He makes sure the door is closed, glances at Buffy through the window to make sure she’s staying put, and then looks back at Amy.  
  
“Xander,” Amy says, curling her lips around his name in a weird way. Like she’s saying it for the first time. Trying the syllables out.   
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“I don't think the spell worked out right.”   
  
Well, that explains why she’s being so weird - she’s worried he’s gonna be mad.   
  
“Oh, yeah, it bombed.” Xander agrees, grinning to show that there are no hard feelings. “No biggie.”  
  
“Well, we can always try again.” She’s worried that he’s gonna out her, obviously. And he feels like a jerk. He looks back through the window and sees Buffy look at him. It surprises him, but Amy pushes on. “I am still pretty new at this.”   
  
No. No, that’s not a good idea. The oogy feeling that had already been existing in his stomach doubled at the thought. Once was revenge, on a petty scale. Trying for twice after the first attempt falls through is just… gross. Gross-er, actually.   
  
“Oh, no, no, no. It's okay. You know what? It was wrong to meddle with the forces of darkness. I see that now." He says, and Amy smiles at him. Probably relieved that he’s not gonna force her to try again. “I think we’ve all grown. I gotta go.”   
  
He starts to try and duck back into the library, suddenly needing to run from the shame, but Amy stops him with her hand, keeping him from getting very far.  
  
“Oh, we don't have to cast any spells!” She says, her eyes bright.   
  
Xander doesn’t really hear her. Buffy’s still _staring_  at him through the window, and now she’s brushing her finger against her bottom lip and giving him a sultry look and there goes the blood flow to his brain. What is going _on_? Okay, she’s still cut up from Angel and must realize he’s feeling the same about Cordy, so she wants to do something carnal to distract them both and that’s just -  
  
“We can just... hang out!” Amy offers, pulling his attention back to her.   
  
“Sure,” Xander says, then he really looks at her. “What?”   
  
Why would she want to hang out with him after he’d blackmailed her? That doesn’t make any sense. No one’s making sense today, actually.  
  
But Amy smiles at him, encouragingly. “Well, I liked spending time with you. You're so sweet. You know, it's funny how you can... you can see a person every day and…”  
  
 _Oh, god. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, fu -_  
  
“Not really see them.” Xander finished, for her, echoing Buffy’s words from earlier.  
  
He looks in at Buffy again. She's still staring out at him, playing with her hair between her lips. This is bad. This is really, really, really bad. This is worse than anything he’s ever done before. Oh, no.  
  
“Exactly. So, anyway, I thought it might…” Amy continues, trying to catch his attention, again.   
  
Footsteps sound out next to them and another girl approaches. One of Cordelia’s friends, actually. He’s not sure which one, they don’t really seem to have names of their owns they just...stand there and make Cordelia look popular, he guesses.   
  
“Hi, Xander.” She says, tilting her head.  
  
“What?” He asks, dazed himself now.   
  
“You're in Mr. Baird's history class, right?”  
  
“...Yeah?”   
  
“I thought maybe we could study together tonight.” She offered and Xander’s jaw nearly hit the floor. It’s not just girls he knows, it’s ones he doesn’t too? Oh, man. Oh man, oh man, this is BAD.  
  
“Do you mind? We were talking!” Amy says, rounding on the girl, who glares right back at her.   
  
“Uh, I really gotta go. Right now.”   
  
He heads down the hall away from them, not quite running… but nearly there. What did he DO?  
  
 _And what is he supposed to do NOW?_


	2. Chapter 2

He goes home.   
  
He doesn’t know why since school just started, but maybe he just figures that it’s the only safe place for him. The one place in all the world that he can go where he knows no girls will be. Neither of his parents home, which marks down as part of the “good” column, and then he rushes up the stairs, to his bedroom, and slams the door shut behind him.   
  
He takes a deep breath, trying to calm down some. He just has to think. He’s just gotta come up with a plan, that’s all. He takes the few steps over to his bed and sits on the edge of it, trying to force himself to think… when someone suddenly touches him. He yelps, jumping up from the bed and spinning around, looking at his bed in shock. _Willow_ is there! Willow, under his covers, dressed in one of his shirts!   
  
“Sorry!” She says, beaming at him. “I wanted to surprise you.”   
  
Xander grins nervously. “Good job! High marks.”  
  
Things are really going from bad to worse, here. He hadn’t even seen Willow since the break up with Cordelia. She’d been avoiding him like the plague ever since she found out that they were dating, even more so since Valentine's day was coming up. And now here she was, in his bed, looking at him… looking at him like /that/.  
  
“Don’t be so jumpy. I've been in your bed before.”  
  
The first and only sleepover he ever had at home. Couldn’t bring her back after the things his dad was saying...  
  
“Yeah, but Will, we were both in footy pajamas.”  
  
“Xan, I've been thinking…”   
  
Oh, god, don’t start this. He can’t take this from her.   
  
“Will, I, I think I know what you've been thinking. But this is all my fault. I cast a spell, and it sort of backfired!”   
  
Willow rubs the sheets. “How long have we been friends?”  
  
She’s trying her hand at being seductive and his discomfort levels are off the charts. This is bad. This is so very bad. He’s the worst human alive and he’s only getting more nervous with every question she asks.   
  
“A long, long time. Too long to do anything that might change that now.”  
  
Maybe he can reason with her? But it’s not looking like that is possible, because she’s inching closer to the edge of the bed, now.  
  
“Well, friendships change all the time! People grow apart… they grow closer.” Willow reasons, smiling up at him.  
  
“Uh, this is good! How close we are now. I feel very comfortable with this amount of closeness. In fact,” He says, pointing behind himself. “I can even back up a few paces and still be happy.”   
  
He steps back, still nervous but smiling. Trying not to hurt her feelings.   
  
“See?”  
  
She gets up from the bed and walks toward him. His shirt is the only thing she's wearing. The ONLY thing.  
  
“I want you, Xander…” She says, still smiling at him. “To be my first!”   
  
“Baseman. Please tell me we're talking baseball.” Xander pleads, backing up again. But Willow corners him and puts her hands up against his chest.  
  
“Shhh.” She whispers to him as he hits the door, and she rubs her hands up and down his chest. And this is all his fault, he _made_  her like this, even if it wasn’t on purpose, but he still can’t help but feel terrified, like he was when it was Ms. French looming in on him. “We both know it’s right.”   
  
She leans into him for a kiss and he turns his head.  
  
“It's not that I don't find you sexy!” He gasps out, still trying to figure out a way to get her to understand that he doesn’t want it without hurting her. She’s not in control of herself, right now, and that’s his fault. This is all his fault. He keeps repeating that to himself, like a mantra.   
  
Willow leans away to look at him, but not like she’s considering is words. “Is it Oz?” she asks, shaking her head and rubbing his chest some more. “Don’t worry about him, he’s sweet, but... he's not you.”   
  
He makes a weak attempt to make a joke. It’s his last line of defense before things get… bad.  
  
“Yes, he is. And you should go to him. Because he’s me.” Xander says, with a failed attempt at a grin.  
  
She leans up to the side of his face and starts to suck on his earlobe. It’s not a good feeling. He doesn’t know what to do, and sweat is starting to trickle down his forehead. He doesn’t know how to handle this. And Buffy’s all spell-ed up too, so the odds of rescue via Slayer are slim to none.  
  
“I-I don't wanna use force.” He says, weakly.   
  
She lets go of his ear and leans back to face him again with a wide smile on her face. “Mm! Force is okay!”   
  
Bad mental image place! She tries for his ear, again, and he winces before he takes her by the arms and pushes her away. She stares at him with confusion, hurt in those soft eyes of hers.   
  
“Th-that's it! This has gotta stop. It's time for me to act like a man!” He says, opening the door behind him. “...And hide!”   
  
He turns and runs, darting out of his own house with no idea where he’s gonna go, just knowing that anywhere is better than there.   
  


* * *

  
There’s not a lot of places for him to go, he realizes, too late. He heads back to the school, ducking inside… and is immediately met with a swarm of girls. They’re not going for the touching like Willow had been, but they’re all staring at him. Watching his every move. Some giggling, some giving him sexy looks, some just watching him walk.  
  
He looks over at the other side of the hall, and it's more of the same. The only people who aren’t licking their chops at the sight of him are the guys, who just look… pissed. Oh, great. He might get his ass kicked… and honestly, he kinda deserves it.   
  
Behind him the girls start to gather and follow. He can hear them like the worst-kept secret ever. And in front of him, girls are gathering too. Checking him out. He looks around with disbelief. All of them? How is this even possible? More girls stare at him walking by, and he gets looks and shakes of heads from the guys. They can’t believe it either… and this is not a good feeling. He feels so small and cold inside.  
  
A group of four girls starts to tail him down the hall.  
  
He’s gotta make an exit and fast. He ducks into the library, the one place no one goes, and closes the door behind him, checking to see if any of the girls are following him. It doesn’t look like it. Okay, good. Now he just has to find Giles. Giles will know what to do.  
  
And, right on cue, the Watcher comes down the stairs. Xander could just cry with relief. It must show on his face because Giles looks concerned.  
  
“Xander?” He calls, his brow furrowing. “What is it?”   
  
He sets the books down and Xander stretches his arms open wide.   
  
“It, it's me... throwing myself at your mercy.”  
  
“What? Why?” Giles asks, immediately suspicious. He pulls off his glasses to clean them.  
  
Xander shifts, trying to think of a way to explain… but it all rises up like word vomit and he just sorta spills his guts all over the place. Metaphorically speaking.   
  
“I made a mess, Giles. See, I found out that Amy's into witchcraft and I was hurt, I guess, so I... made her put the love whammy on Cordy, but it backfired, and now every woman in Sunnydale wants to make me her cuddle monkey, which may sound swell on paper, but…”  
  
The doors open and Xander jumps as Ms. Calendar comes into the library behind them and strides over.   
  
“Rupert, we need to talk!” She says, firmly, though her gaze does flick to Xander. “Hey, Xander. Nice shirt.”   
  
She starts to rub his shirt and Xander cringes, internally. He needs to think of something better to think than “Oh GOD” every time this happens, but that’s all he got. OH GOD, because Giles’ girlfriend is now feeling up on him.   
  
“Look, Rupert, I know that you're angry at me, and I don't blame you, but I am not just gonna go away.” She tells Giles, but she keeps rubbing Xander’s arm and Xander is WIGGED. “I mean, I care far too much about you to…”   
  
She trails off and looks at Xander’s arm. Xander thinks if he goes any paler he’s gonna be translucent.   
  
“Have you been working out?”  
  
Xander turns to look at Giles, giving him a “See-what-I-mean?” glance and silently begging him for help. Giles grabs Ms. Calendar by her arms and pulls her away from Xander, moving her behind him.  
  
“Oh!” She says, startled, but staring at Xander with bedroom eyes and that is the last thing he ever wanted to see from her. Giles looks at her, then at Xander, back to her, and then finally back at Xander with rage like he’s never seen in G-man’s cool, blue eyes.   
  
“I cannot believe that you are fool enough to do something like this!”  
  
Xander shakes his head and swallows hard. “Oh, no, I'm twice the fool it takes to do something like this.”  
  
Ms. Calendar keeps staring at him while she plays with her necklace. Xander tries not to look at her.  
  
“Has, uh... Has Amy tried to reverse the spell?” Giles asked.  
  
“I get around Amy and all she wants to do is talk honeymoon plans.”  
  
Ms. Calendar steps toward Xander, still looking at him like she wants to eat him alive and that is NOT a happy thought place for someone who was almost eaten by a mantis lady. “Rupert, maybe I need to talk to Xander alone.”  
  
Giles pushes her back, but her renewed passes made at Xander seem to have only pissed him off more. “Do you have any idea how serious this is? People under a-a love spell, Xander, are-are deadly. They lose all capacity for reason.”  
  
He looks at Ms. Calendar who has begun rubbing her hands over her face and neck, then down her body and then looks back at Xander.   
  
“And if what you say is true and the entire female population is affected, I…” He trails off and then nods sternly. “Don’t leave the library. I'll find Amy and see if we can put a stop to this thing.”  
  
He starts to leave the library, leaving HIM alone with Ms. Calendar, who rubs her fingers together and sashays up to him. He steps back away from her, terrified. Luckily, Giles seems to remember that he forgot her, and whirls back around, taking Ms. Calendar by the hand and pulling her out of the library behind him. Ms. Calendar moans and reaches her arm out to Xander as Giles drags her off. And Xander gets the sense that Giles, who already didn’t like him, is never gonna forgive him for this.  
  
But he doesn’t have time to wallow. There are no girls around, and he quickly moves to push the mobile card catalog in front of the doors in an attempt to keep it that way. He heads back toward the table… and hears the door swing shut and smack the card catalog behind him. He spins around and stares at Buffy in shock.   
  
She’s standing there with one hand on the catalog and the other propped up against the door. Posing for him. Smiling as she raises her right ankle and rubs it against her calf. She’s wearing practically nothing and terror starts all over for him.  
  
“Alone at last.”  
  
Xander gapes at her. “Buff, give me a heart attack!”  
  
“Oh,” She says, starting to sashay over to him. “I’m gonna give you more than that.”   
  
She grabs her raincoat belt to untie it and Xander reels back, shaking his head and gesturing with his hands.   
  
“Buff, for the love of God, don’t open that raincoat!”  
  
But she doesn’t listen. “Come on! It's a party! Aren't you gonna open your present?”  
  
She undoes a button and Xander swallows hard, backing up toward the stairs, nervously. Bad. Bad. Bad. Oh, if the Hellmouth was ever gonna open up and swallow him, now would be the best time. He’s never wanted or deserved to go to hell more.   
  
“It's not that I don't want to.” He says, hoping an indirect rejection will somehow soften the blow. “There was a time when the remote impossible possibility that you might like me was all that sustained me. But not now!”   
  
He trips and falls backward onto the stairs. It hurts, the edge of one digging into his back.  
  
“Not like this. This isn't real to you.” He says, holding up his hands to try and fend her off when she steps up and puts her leg over him. “You’re only here because of a spell. I can’t.”   
  
Buffy’s face starts to go splotchy with upset. “So, you’re saying this is all a game?”   
  
“A game? I... No!”  
  
Upset turns to rage faster than he can defend himself. Not that there’s much to defend.   
  
“You make me feel this way, and then you reject me? What am I, a toy?”  
  
“Buffy, please calm down.”  
  
“I'll calm down when you explain yourself!”   
  
He’s trying to explain himself! It’s just that she’s not listening! He opens his mouth… but he can’t get another word out, because Amy is suddenly there behind her.   
  
“Get away from him!” She snaps and, for a second, Xander wonders if Giles broke the spell over Amy, but then Buffy whips her head around and Amy continues. “He’s mine.”  
  
No such luck, then.  
  
Buffy steps toward Amy. “Oh, I don't think so.” She looks back at him. “Xander, tell her!”  
  
“What? I, uh…”  
  
“He doesn't have to say.” Amy snaps, turning Buffy’s attention back to her. “I know what his heart wants.”  
  
“Funny, I know what your face wants.”  
  
She swings and punches Amy in the face and Xander watches with horror as Amy falls to the floor, and then, even more, fear when Buffy rounds on him. Slayer strength with the insanity of a love spell? Not a good combo!   
  
“What is this, you're two-timing me?”  
  
Xander doesn't know what to say. He tries to think of something, tries to think of a solution, but there’s nothing and no time, because Amy gets up. Her nose is bloody and her eyes have become pitch-black. Suddenly looks a lot more like her mom, actually, and she begins to weave a spell with her   
hands.  
  
“Goddess Hecate, work thy will.”  
  
“Uh-oh.” Xander says. Shit, what should he do? What can he do? What -  
  
“Before thee let the unclean thing crawl!”  
  
She thrusts her arms out at Buffy, and the power of the spell leaps from her hands and envelops the Slayer.  
  
“Buffy!” Xander chokes out. “Oh my god!”   
  
There’s nothing left but an empty raincoat, lying on the floor, and Xander looks from it to Amy with the sudden, visceral need to maybe throw up churning in his stomach. The doors bang against his weak attempt to keep everyone out, again, and Giles comes back with Ms. Calendar.  
  
“What, what just happened?” He asked, seeing the terror in Xander’s eyes.  
  
Xander just gestures to the raincoat. “Buffy.”   
  
Ms. Calendar smiles broadly when she sees Xander and tries to go to him, but Giles holds her back. Which is lucky, because Xander isn’t sure how much more touching he can take before he loses his mind and starts screaming, never stops, and has to be put in an insane asylum.   
  
“Where is she?”  
  
They both look down at the raincoat. And, out of the sleeve, comes a little rat, crawling out.   
  
“Oh, my God! Giles gasps and Xander is pretty sure he made that point earlier.  
  
Amy steps over to Xander. “Why is she here?” She asks, gesturing at Ms. Calendar.  
  
“Can you focus for a minute? You just turned Buffy into a rat!”  
  
Buffy starts to scamper across the floor. Giles follows her with his gaze, his mouth open in shock and horror.  
  
“Buffy can take care of herself.” Amy snaps, taking him by the arm. “Why don't we go someplace private?”  
  
Ms. Calendar puts her hands on her hips and gives Amy a haughty look while Giles looks around for where Buffy went, starting after her. And Xander jerks his arm away. He can’t take much more of this.  
  
“Can you... I'm not going anywhere until you change her back!”  
  
Ms. Calendar steps over to Amy, her arms folded over her chest. “You heard him. So why don't you undo your little magic trick and get lost?”  
  
Amy sneered right back at her. “Who made you Queen of the World? Well, you're old enough to be.”  
  
“Well, what can I say?” Ms. Calendar asks, grabbing Xander by the shirt and pulling him closer to him. “I guess Xander's just too much man for the pimple squad.”  
  
Amy puts her arm between them and pushes Xander away from Ms. Calendar, he staggers back and watches tiredly as she waves her hands before her and begins to cast _another_  spell. Her eyes turn pitch-black and energy begins to swirl around her. Xander’s seen this show, already, though.  
  
“Goddess Hecate, to you I pray, with this…”  
  
Xander puts his hand over Amy's mouth “Would you quit with the Hecate?!”  
  
Giles storms over, then, his eyes flashing. He storms over to Amy and Ms. Calendar and speaks sternly to them. “You two. Sit. And be quiet.”  
  
Amy goes to the table and Ms. Calendar joins her. They both sit and glare at each other, and Giles turns to Xander, pulling off his coat. For a wild second, Xander thinks that Giles is going to _hit_  him.   
  
“We have to catch the Buffy rat.”  
  
Right. Yeah. That makes more sense. Xander scans the floor.  
  
“Ooh, there!”  
  
Buffy squeezes behind a bookcase as he rushes to try to catch her, but he’s too late. He sees her crawl along the space behind the case toward the other end and he quickly crawls along the front of the case to head her off while Giles waits at the other end. Xander peeks around the other end of the bookcase to wait for Buffy to come out.  
  
“Good Buffy. Just…”  
  
Someone strolls up next to him and he looks up, startled. It’s Oz. But he can’t get a word out before Oz suddenly punches him in the face. HARD. He knocks Xander to the floor and startles Giles, who looks up as well. Oz shakes out his hand and Buffy makes her escape.   
  
“That kinda hurt.” Oz said, evenly.  
  
Xander rubs his cheek. “Kinda?! What was that for?”   
  
“I was on the phone all night, listening to Willow cry about _you_. Now, I don't know exactly what happened, but I was left with a very strong urge to... hit you.” Oz said, trailing off and then reaching down to help Xander up.  
  
And, okay, then he did deserve that. Xander stands and looks at Oz with wide eyes.   
  
“I didn’t touch her. I swear.”  
  
“Xander! Where's Buffy?” Giles interrupts, looking around frantically again.   
  
Oz looked confused, and Xander swallowed hard before explaining. “Amy turned her into a rat.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
Giles and Xander get on their knees and look around while making squeaking noises, weirdly enough. Oz crouches down to look as well… but there’s no sign of her, anywhere.  
  
“I don't see her. If anything happens to her, I'll... “ Giles turns to look at Xander, disgust in his eyes. Xander freezes at the sight, suddenly feeling like his throat closed. Giles’ has been exasperated with him, but he never looks so… “Oh, just go home!”   
  
He stands, glaring at Xander, who can’t seem to move a muscle, just stares back at him.   
  
“Lock yourself away. You're only going to cause more problems here. Now, Amy, Ms. Calendar and I will, uh... try and break the spell. Oz, if, if you could aid us in, in finding, um... Buffy.”  
  
Oz nods. “Sure. Absolutely.”  
  
Xander shrinks into himself and then opens his mouth. He wants to apologize, wants to tell him how sorry he is, and how disgusting he feels, and how much he’d hate himself if something happened to Buffy - that he’d do anything to fix it, but Giles cuts him off before he can even get a word out, his eyes flashing and, for the second time, Xander thinks that he might wanna hit him.   
  
“Just go. Get out of my sight.”  
  
He gapes at Giles, for a second, trying hard not to cry… but then he starts away, his head hung low.   
  
 _Odds of him surviving this? Pretty slim. Odds that he’ll want to? Even lower._


	3. Chapter 3

Xander steps out into the hallway, his head still hung low, and his heart sunk all the way to his upset stomach when he suddenly hears Cordelia cry out and his head snaps up, looking down to hall toward her voice.   
  
“What are you doing?! You guys are crazy!!  
  
He looks, but he can’t see her. There’s a mass amount of girls, all struggling and pushing each other, but… he doesn’t see Cordelia. He hears Harmony’s voice, though, and his blood runs cold.  
  
“You thought you could do better, is that it?”  
  
“No, I…”  
  
“We'll knock that snotty attitude right out of you!”  
  
The crowd of girls opens a bit, and Xander finally sees her. Cordy - HIS Cordy - being shoved around and smacked by the feral crowd of girls. Oh, shit. He starts running toward them, and when they see him coming, several of them break off and start running at _him_ , screaming and shouting like fangirls seeing the lead singer step out. The others push Cordelia to the floor but he fights his way through them, landing down next to her just as one has started pulling her hair.   
  
“Ow! Stop!”  
  
Xander knocks hair-puller aside and lifts Cordelia up from the floor, into his arms, and shakes the girls off as he runs from the hall, the thunderous sounds of their footsteps after him the only warning that they’re not going to give up that easily.   
  
They slide out an exit and Xander starts to come to a halt, turning to look at Cordelia.   
  
“I think we…” He starts to say, but he trails off when he sees a crowd of girls there, waiting for them. Waiting for HIM. “...lost them.”  
  
Willow is standing at the front of the crowd, holding a large fire ax. Her eyes narrow at the sight of him with Cordelia and her nostrils flare.   
  
“I should’ve known I’d find you with her!”   
  
Xander gapes. Aw, man. He is so screwed!   
  
“Will...come on, you don’t wanna hurt me.”  
  
“Oh, no?” Willow asks, her eyes wet with tears and she stomps her foot. “You don't know how hard this is for me. I love you so much! I'd rather see you dead than with that bitch.”  
  
She raises the ax and advances toward him. The others start toward him as well… and, right behind them and right on cue, Harmony and her friends come running out of the hall now, too, to confront the crowd. The girls all scream and yell as they fight. Harmony grabs Willow's ax and wrestles her for it.  
  
“Get away from him! He's mine!”  
  
They distract themselves just enough for Xander and Cordelia to start running, and Xander thinks that if he does somehow survive this… well, he’s never going to want anyone to like him ever again.  
  


* * *

  
They run as far and as fast as they can until their legs threaten to call it quits under them and only then do they slow to a walk, holding their sides and panting. Every breath hurts and Xander wheezes.   
  
“Okay, now I really think we’ve lost them.”   
  
“Damn it, Xander, what's going on? Who died and made YOU Elvis?” Cordelia asks, turning on him, eyes bright with rage.   
  
“Buffy’s house,” Xander says, pointing when he sees it. “Let’s get inside. I’ll explain later.”   
  
They run up to the door and Xander knocks fast and loud, looking back to make sure that the crowd hasn’t found him yet and hoping beyond hope that the spell doesn’t give them all a honing device. Cordelia joins him in knocking.   
  
“Come on!” She says, frantically, looking back as well.  
  
And, just like an angel, Buffy’s mom opens the door. Ms. Summers looks out, perplexed. “Xander, Cordelia? What…”  
  
Cordelia shoves past her, pulling Xander with her.   
  
“Yeah, hi.”  
  
Cordelia slams the door shut behind her, and she and Xander look out the small windows in the door to make sure there's still no one following them. They’ve done this before, with bug guy… and during Halloween. It’s starting to feel like a routine.   
  
“What happened?” Mrs. Summers asks when they abandon the door. “Why are you all scratched up? Where’s Buffy?”  
  
“She's, um... around,” Xander says, realizing that he has no way of telling Mrs. Summers that her daughter is now a rat.   
  
Mrs. Summers gestures to a stool. “Well, sit down and tell me about it. And, why don’t you run upstairs and grab some bandages out of the bathroom?”   
  
Xander sits and Cordelia goes down the hall, toward the stairs. Xander exhales a sigh of relief. This might be the best place to hide out, just until Giles fixed things. Right?   
  
“Let me, uh, get you something to drink. You in the mood for cold or hot?”  
  
Xander shrugs. “I, uh…”   
  
And then the other shoe drops. Mrs. Summers walks around, behind him and starts rubbing his shoulders, leaning in and giggling in his ear.   
  
“I think it’s more of a hot night, don’t you?”   
  
Xander slams his head down into the table, suddenly realizing that the spell - of COURSE - affected Buffy’s mother, too. This might as well happen. He’s too tired to keep arguing. Maybe she’ll just stab him and that’ll be that.   
  
“Whatever.” He mumbles.   
  
“Ooh, you are so tense.” She murmurs to him, kissing the back of his neck and making him shudder with revulsion. “Mm.”  
  
“What are you DOING?” Cordelia suddenly shrieked, coming back into the room. “Make me yak!”   
  
Mrs. Summers straightens up, defensively. “Cordelia, go back upstairs. This is between us.”   
  
“Gross! I think not!”   
  
Cordelia stormed off, grabbing Buffy’s mom by the arm and pushing her back toward the door, opening it with her free hand while Mrs. Summers protested -  
  
“What are you doing? Hey! Get your hands off me!”  
  
Cordelia pushes her out of the door, slams it shut and locks it.  
  
“And keep your mom-aged mitts off my boyfriend. Uh, Former!” She shrieked after him, before whirling around and staring at Xander. “Why has everyone gone insane?!”   
  
“Insane? Is it so impossible for you to believe that other women find me attractive?” Xander jokes, weakly.  
  
Cordelia rolled her eyes at him, “The only way you could get girls to want you would be witchcraft.”   
  
“That is such a…” Xander starts to snap, but then he concedes. “Well, yeah, okay, good point.”  
  
Before he can tell her how good a point, Mrs. Summers breaks one of the kitchen door window panes.  
  
Cordelia shrieked and jumped back. “Oh, my God!”  
  
Mrs. Summers reaches in and feels around for the lock. Calling to him. “Xander, honey! Let Joycie in! Hon, let Joycie in!”   
  
And if _that_  isn’t the scariest thing he’s ever heard… Xander jumps up takes hold of Cordelia and leads her out of the kitchen at a run.  
  
“Upstairs! Buffy's room!”   
  
They dash as fast as they can, running in, and Cordelia slams the door shut behind them. Xander hurries to the window and checks outside. There’s no sign of anyone out there.  
  
“Good. The mob still hasn't found us. We should be safer up here.”   
  
He starts to look back at Cordelia when he hears the sound of glass shattering and someone grabs him by the shirt. Angelus!   
  
“Works in theory.” He says, yanking Xander out the window and pulling him up, onto the roof. And all he can hear is Cordelia’s terrified voice coming from inside the Summer’s house.   
  
“Xander!”   
  
There’s no time to steady himself. Angelus grabs him by the shirt and holds him up, snarling in his face. “Where’s Buffy?!”   
  
Cordelia comes to the window. Xander sees her and shakes his head, desperately.   
  
“Cordy, get outta here!”   
  
He barely gets the words out before Angelus throws him off of the roof to the lawn below. Xander lands with a thud, hitting his head hard. Angelus leaps down after him and looms over him.   
  
“Perfect.” Angelus snarls, grabbing Xander and pulling him up. “I wanted to do something special for Buffy, actually to Buffy, but this is SO much better.”   
  
Xander scrambles, kneeing Angelus in the crotch, but he’s not even phased. He flips Xander over backward onto the grass, again, and then bends down. He grabs Xander’s hair and lifts his head up.  
  
“If it’s any consolation, I feel very close to you right now,” Angelus whispers to him, pressing his body flush against Xander’s. And Xander squeezes his eyes shut. He’s gonna die. He’s gonna die. He’s -  
  
A hand grabs Angelus by the shoulder, pulls him up and throws him aside into a tree. He hits it hard and slides down to the ground. Xander jumps to a conclusion and looks up at his savior.  
  
“Buffy, how…”  
  
Not Buffy.  
  
“Don’t fret, kitten.” Drusilla purrs to him. “Mummy’s here.”  
  
Angelus hops back up to his feet, snarling after her. “I don’t know what you’re up to, Dru, but it DOESN’T amuse!”   
  
Drusilla growls at Angelus and he growls back. “If you harm one hair on this boy’s head…”   
  
“You've gotta be kidding. Him?”  
  
“Just because I finally found a REAL man…” She said, turning Xander to face her.   
  
“I guess I really did drive you crazy.” Angelus snarled, backing up slightly, but watching.  
  
Drusilla runs her fingers over Xander's lips. “Your face is a poem. I can read it.”  
  
Xander shakes. “Really? It doesn't say 'spare me' by any chance?”  
  
“Shhh….”   
  
Drusilla kisses him and then pulls back, whispering in his ear -  
  
“How do you feel about eternal life?”   
  
“We couldn't just start with a coffee? A movie, maybe?”  
  
No laugh. She grabs his hair and jerks his head to the side, exposing his neck. She moves in to bite him but gets distracted by the screams of the mob of women running at them. Shit, he’s been found. Willow is leading with her ax, and all the rest of them seem to have weapons now, too.  
  
“There he is! Get them!”  
  
“He's mine! Get off!”  
  
Drusilla lets go of Xander and Willow shoves her aside while Ms. Calendar jumps onto Xander and knocks him to the ground. All the girls are screaming and it’s nothing but chaos and several of them, including Harmony, begin to paw at him. He can’t move. He’s entirely helpless and Willow stands over him with an ax, ready to strike.   
  
“All you had to do was love me!”   
  
“No!”   
  
Cordelia rushes them, grabs the ax, and shoves Willow onto the ground. She lunges for Xander, trying to free him from the mob. “Get out of the way! Move it! Get off him! “  
  
She pushes the one that has him pinned down off of him, grabs his hand   
and pulls him up.  
  
“Back off!”  
  
She shoves him along and they start to run back to the house. Xander and Cordelia just manage to squeak back inside and slam the door in the faces of the mob… only for Drusilla to kick it in. Girls start rushing in and Xander yelps when Mrs. Summers comes up behind them holding a large knife.  
  
“It's never gonna work for us, Xander. We have to end it.”  
  
The other two girls come up behind her. Cordelia yells out in fright as Xander pulls her away from the door and the two of them book it, down to the basement… again, the place that started this mess to begin with. He pulls the door closed behind him and hooks it shut. It doesn’t stay in place for long, though. The girls kick and hit at it, and it shakes violent. Xander starts trying to hammer boards over it and looks back at Cordelia.   
  
“Gimme a nail!”  
  
She hands him a nail and he goes back to hammering.  
  
“If we die in here I'm gonna kick your ass! I mean it!”  
  
Xander looks back at her, annoyed. “None of this would've happened if you hadn't broken up with me. But no, you're so desperate to be popular!”  
  
“Me? I'm not the one who embraced the black arts just to get the girls to like me. Well, congratulations, it worked!”  
  
“Would've worked fine, except your hide's so thick, not even magic can penetrate it!” He shouts over the sound of him hammering.   
  
Cordelia looks… surprised by that and reaches out to him. He turns to look at her again.   
  
“You mean… the spell was for me?”   
  
They look at each other for a moment, and Xander wonders if they’re going to kiss when a knife blade stabs through the door. Cordelia screams, and they both run down the steps. Once at the bottom they hear glass breaking and see a hand reach in through the basement window.  
  
“Oh, please let me touch you!”  
  
Cordelia screams as she and Xander run to the washer and dryer and the doors swings open. Willow stands at the top with her ax.  
  
“Oh, my God!”  
  
Xander spots a large pipe wrench and grabs it to use as a weapon. “Stay behind me!”  
  
Willow ducks under the boards Xander nailed across the door frame and starts down the stairs, with Mrs. Summers right behind her with her knife. A crowd of girls follows them and they’re all marching to ensure his certain death. Cordelia and Xander retreat into the corner by the water heater, his hands shaking as he holds his weapon. They all charge at once, screaming and shouting, and they knock them back onto the floor. Xander flails and struggles, trying to knock the hands off of him.  
  
“Get off!”  
  
Willow drops her ax and paws at them like the others. Xander struggles to keep from being torn apart by the hands pushing and pulling him. He’s gonna die. He’s gonna die. He’s -  
  
The gang of girls stops struggling. Cordelia pushes one of them away.  
  
“Get off me!” She shrieks, sitting up.  
  
They all stand up and look around at each other, dazed and confused.  
  
“What's going on? Where am I? What's going on?”  
  
Mrs. Summers looks around at all the people in her basement, perplexed.  
  
“What… what did we…”   
  
“Boy!” Cordelia said, suddenly, startling Xander. “That was the best scavenger hunt ever!”   
  
Xander smiles at everyone lamely and thinks he’s gonna faint.  
  


* * *

  
Everything is back to normal the next day. Sunnydale bounces back from weirdness like it’s nothing. No one looks at him, no one new talks to him. Actually, some people who do know him aren’t talking to him, either, but he’s trying hard to ignore that part. At least Buffy is still interested i being in his friend. He walks beside her, headed toward the library, going over the events from the night before.   
  
“Scavenger hunt.”  
  
“Your mom seemed to buy it,” Xander said, with a shrug. Cordelia hadn’t been very convincing, but there was nothing else they could think of to explain it.  
  
“So she says. I think she's just so wigged at hitting on one of my friends that she's repressing. She's getting pretty good at that. I should probably start worrying.”  
  
Xander tries not to think too hard about that. “Well, I'm back to being incredibly unpopular.”  
  
“It's better than everyone trying to axe-murder you, right?” Buffy asks, glancing over at him.  
  
“Mostly, but, uh…” He says, his heart sinking in his chest. “Willow won't even talk to me.”  
  
Buffy tosses her hair. There’s no sympathy coming from her, but he hadn’t really been expecting any, either, so it doesn’t sting… much. “Any particular reason she should?”  
  
Xander grimaces. “How much groveling are we talking here?”  
  
“Oh, a month, at least,” Buffy says. She comes to a halt and she looks at him. “Xander, come on. I mean… this is worse for her than anyone. She loved you before you invoked the great Roofie spirit. The rest of us…”   
  
That last line surprises him. Most of the girls didn’t act like they remembered ever wanting him.   
  
“You remember, huh?”  
  
“Oh, yeah. I remember coming on to you, I remember begging you to undress me... And then a sudden need for cheese. I also remember that you didn't.”   
  
Xander pretends to misunderstand, uncomfortable with the topic. “Need cheese?”  
  
“Undress me. It meant a lot to me what you said.”  
  
Xander just shakes his head. He doesn’t think he really deserves the award for the bare minimum. As much as it sucks that Willow isn’t talking to him, and that Cordelia probably hates him, and that Giles is still looking at him like he’s lower than dirt… he knows he deserves it. Every look, every comment, every glare.   
  
“C'mon, Buffy, I couldn't take advantage of you like that.”  
  
“There might just be hope for you yet.”  
  
Xander laughs, without any real humour. “Well, tell that to Cordelia.”  
  
Buffy shakes her head. “You're on your own there.”  
  
She goes off down the hall leaving Xander alone. Again.   
  


* * *

  
Xander doesn’t really feel like going to class, so he heads in the direction opposite his third period, debating going to hide under the bleachers out at the football field. It’d be… easier, for everyone, he thinks. If he lies low for a while. He won’t have to see Ms. Calendar blanch at the sight of him, won’t have to see Willow turn her head like his face hurts her, won’t have to see the disgust in the eyes of girls who didn’t know him but had vague recollections of inexplicably wanting him… and they won’t have to see him and be reminded of it, either.   
  
But, since when he is life ever that easy? He bumps into Harmony as she and her gang of rich girls round the corner and she jumps back from him with disgust in her expression.   
  
“Watch it.”   
  
Cordelia is with them. Xander tries not to look at any of them directly.   
  
“Sorry.”   
  
“God!” Harmony says, looking him up and down. He braces for the comment before it comes, but it doesn’t really make it easier when she says, “Y'know, I'm glad your mom stopped working at the drive-through long enough to dress you!”   
  
She turns back to Cordelia then, and Xander starts to walk away, head down. Maybe he can transfer schools… or buy a shovel, bury himself alive…  
  
“Harmony, shut up!” Cordelia suddenly snaps. It stops Xander in his tracks and he looks back, startled. “Do you know what you are, Harmony? You’re a sheep.”   
  
Harmony blinks, confused. “I’m not a sheep.”  
  
“You're a sheep. All you ever do is what everyone else does just so you can say you did it first. And here I am, scrambling for your approval, when I'm _way_  cooler than you are 'cause I'm _not_  a sheep. I do what I wanna do, and I wear what I wanna wear. And you know what?”   
  
Xander grins, listening to her. Cordelia’s a bitch and he likes her so much his heart swells.   
  
“I’ll date whoever the hell I wanna date! No matter how lame he is!”   
  
Okay, that takes the smile back off of his face. But Cordelia steps away from the group and walks over to him, and puts the smile right back. When she reaches him, she takes his arm and they start walking together along the colonnade.   
  
“Oh, God! Oh, god!” Cordelia pants, breathing hard with anxiety.  
  
Xander pats her hand. “You’re gonna be okay. Just keep walkin’.”  
  
“Oh, God, what have I done? They're never gonna speak to me again!”  
  
What, like that’s a bad thing? He doesn’t say that out loud, though.  
  
“Oh, sure, they are. If it helps, whenever we're around them you and I can fight a lot.”  
  
“You promise?”   
  
“You can pretty much count on it.”   
  
They share a smile before the continue on… falling into companionable silence.   
  
 _It doesn’t fix everything… but it’s a start._


End file.
